A    Disco! 


G  LI  A  DU  ATI  X(i   CLASS 


,EGB  OP.  CHARLESTON 


.)  a  >: 


A'  A  ]{  L  I' 


OlIARLBSTOJH 

AM-POWKK     PRKSS    OP    KYA.N 


THE 

WILLIAM  R.  PERKINS 

LIBRARY 

OF 

DUKE  UNIVERSITY 


Rare  Books 


GOD    IN    HISTORY 


A  DISCOURSE 


DEMVKRKI)    BEFORE    THK 


GRADUATING  CLASS 


COLLEGE  OF  CHARLESTON 


Sunday  Evening,  March  29,  1863, 


R  E  V.    J  A  M  B  S    W  ARL  E  Y    M  I  L  E  S  . 

"And  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth,  and 
hath  determined  the  times  before  appointed,  and  the  bounds  of  their  habitation  " — Acts  xvii.  26. 


PUBLISHED  BY  BEQUEST  OF  THE  CLASS. 


CHARLESTON: 

STEAM-POWER    PRESS    OF    EVANS     &    COGSWELL 

No.  8  Broad  and  103  East  Bay  streets. 

1863. 


* 


Charleston,  March  30,  1S63. 

Dear  Sir: 

We  are  instructed  by  the  Graduating  Class  to  return  to  you  their  most  hearty  and 
entire  thanks  for  the  profound,  eloquent,  and  exceedingly  appropriate  Discourse 
which  you  delivered  before  them  on  last  Sunday  everting,  and  to  request  a  copy  for 
publication.  We  feel,  sir,  that  we  would  be  doing  injustice  to  the  Class  and  to 
ourselves,  did  we  not  express,  in  an  especial  manner,  our  high  appreciation  of  its 
unusual  merit.  We  should  be  glad  to  be  able  to  study  at  our  leisure  the  deep  truths 
which  you  so  forcibly  presented  to  our  attention,  and  we  should  esteem  it  indeed  a 
privilege  to  be  instrumental  in  sending  to  every  member  of  our  young  Republic  its 
earnest  words  of  warning  and  encouragement. 

With  the  sincere  hope  that  you  will  comply  with  the  wish  of  the  Class, 
We  remain,  dear  sir,  with  gratitude  and  esteem, 

Your  obedient  servants, 

JAMES  BIRNIE, 
F.  P.  HUGHES. 
To  the  Rev.  James  W.  Miles.  Committee. 


Messrs.  Birnik  and  Hogbes, 

Committee  of  the  Senior  Clous: 

(tkxti.kmrn' — I  am  at  a  loss  how  to  thank  you  for  the  terms  in  which  you  have 
acknowledged  tue  imperfect  effort  to  discharge  the  duty  which  I  felt  honored  in 
having  assigned  me  by  your  Class.  While  T  am  deeply  gratified  that  my  discourse 
has  met  with  your  approbation,  at  the  same  time  I  am  fully  aware  that  its  manifold 
deficiencies  will  be  but  too  evident  when  it  is  subjected  to  the  ordeal  of  publication. 
The  discourse,  however,  in  a  manner,  belongs  to  you,  and  I  shall  therefore  place 
the  manuscript  at  your  disposal.  If  its  publication  should  answer  no  other  end,  it 
will  at  least  be  a  memorial  of  our  friendship,  and  to  me  a  gratifying  memento  of 
the  manner  in  which  you  have  been  pleased  to  appreciate  a  sincere,  though  very 
inadequate,  attempt  to  fulfil  the  trust  which  you  reposed  in  me. 

Believe  me,  with  every  feeling  of  friendship  and  respect, 

Obediently  yours, 

J.  W.  MILES. 

Morvh  30,  18(5.3. 


DISCOURSE 


Could  one  take  a  purely  objective  view  of  the  vast 
panorama  of  universal  history  as  its  varying  events  crowd- 
ed across  the  field  of  vision,  it  would  probably  present  a 
confused  and  tumultuary  scene.  Nation  crowding  upon 
nation  —  each  working  out  its  own  national  ends  and  exist- 
ence, irrespective  of  others,  or,  where  coming  into  conflict, 
conquering  and  being  conquered — running  a  varied  career, 
and  disappearing  from  the  scene  —  vast  empires  blooming 
and  decaying  apparently  only  for  themselves,  conflicting 
nationalities,  new  political  combinations,  the  ever  recur- 
ring round  of  growth,  tumult,  bloom,  and  decay  —  such 
would  probably  appear  to  be  the  general  spectacle  pre- 
sented by  the  history  of  nations.  But  the  contemplation 
of  history  as  a  congeries  of  events  springing  from  the 
arbitrary  acts  of  men,  where  the  ambition  of  a  conqueror, 
or  the  arts  of  a  demagogue,  or  the  subtlety  of  a  politician, 
or  the  policy  of  a  nation,  or  the  combination  of  various 
external  circumstances  are  alone  assumed  as  the  explana- 
tion of  historical  events,  cannot  satisfy  those  demands  of 
the  intellect  which,  by  its  very  constitution,  it  is  compelled 
to  make  when  brought  face  to  face  with  varied  and  seem- 
ingly incongruous  phenomena.  That  law  of  the  reason 
which  seeks  after  unity,  which  strives  to  co-ordinate  the 
boundless,  and  often  apparently  confused  mass  of  physical 


6 

phenomena,  and  to  refer  them  to  harmonizing  and  in-form- 
ing law,  is  impelled  to  deal  in  the  same  manner  with  the 
facts  of  human  history,  and  to  seek  in  them,  no  less  than 
in  the  grand  marchings  of  the  heavens,  the  manifestation 
of  a  rational  and  providential  plan. 

All  phenomena  indicate  some  underlying  law  which  is 
manifesting  and  realizing  itself  through  them.  And  so 
perfectly  is  this  now  established  that  every  new  class  of 
phenomena,  even  those  apparently  the  most  arbitrary  and 
irregular,  set  the  investigator  upon  his  search  with  the 
most  absolute  confidence  that  they  are  not  fortuitous  re- 
sults of  accident,  but  that  they  indicate  the  operation  of 
inevitable  law.  The  great  physical  phenomena  of  the 
universe  naturally  first  pressed  this  conception  upon  the 
mind  of  man,  and  although,  from  the  overwhelming  va- 
riety of  the  aspects  of  nature,  it  was  long  before  the  con- 
ception assumed  a  clear  and  scientific  form,  yet  the  laws 
of  the  human  mind  responded  to  the  suggestions  of  the 
external  world;  and  in  even  the  very  oldest  and  crudest 
systems  of  philosophy  there  are  traces  of  a  dim  conscious- 
ness of  this  supreme  truth.  But  the  perception  of  law 
without  him  would  not  fail  to  direct  man's  attention  to  the 
phenomena  of  his  own  intellectual  and  moral  being,  and  to 
the  investigation  of  those  laws  within  him  which  ulti- 
mately led  to  scientific  psychology  and  to  the  criticism  of 
the  reason.  Man,  however,  stands  not  merely  face  to  face 
with  the  stupendous  phenomena  of  nature  and  with  the 
marvellous  laws  of  his  own  being,  but  from  the  very  con- 
stitution of  his  nature  his  relations  as  a  political  creature  to 
the  state  most  prominently  impressed  him,  and  with  polit- 
ical development  and  the  growth  of  free  states  it  was 
inevitable  that  he  should  be  led  to  investigate  the  laws  of 
those  relations,  and  thus  to  lay  the  foundation  of  political 


philosophy.  With  increasing  experience  that  there  is 
nothing  which  is  not  subject  to  law  —  with  the  ever  deep- 
ening conviction  that  all  phenomena  —  that  the  universe 
itself — arc  but  the  manifestation  and  embodiment  of  Su- 
preme Thought,  men  came  at  length,  necessarily^  to  seek  in 
the  varied,  complicated,  often  seemingly  conflicting  phases 
of  human  history,  for  some  general  and  fundamental  laws 
which  might  harmonize  the  phenomena  and  explain  the 
thought  of  which  they  were  the  exponent.  And  thus, 
instead  of  history  being  regarded  as  a  collection  of  so 
many  arbitrary  and  independent  national  episodes,  con- 
nected only  by  the  accidental  bond  of  external  contact, 
there  was  laid  the  foundation  of  a  philosophy  of  history 
which  seeks  a  true  internal  connection  of  law  or  thought, 
giving  unity  to  and  expressed  by  the  manifestations  of  the 
history  of  nations. 

What  has  been  stated  may  be  recapitulated  in  a  single 
sentence.  The  constitution  of  the  human  mind  impels  it 
to  investigate  the  laws  of  which  the  phenomena  of  the 
universe  are  the  exponents:  this  is  philosophy;  and  accord- 
ing to  the  classes  of  phenomena  toward  which  the  inves- 
tigation is  directed  there  necessarily  arise  sundry  particular 
philosophies,  as,  for  example,  a  philosophy  of  nature  —  a 
philosophy  of  mind  —  a  philosophy  of  morals  —  a  philoso- 
phy of  politics  —  a  philosophy  of  history.  Having  thus 
rapidly  indicated  the  manner  in  which  a  philosophy  of  his- 
tory arose,  with  which  alone  we  are  at  present  concerned, 
it  would  be  natural,  in  the  next  place,  to  pass  in  review 
the  various  attempts  which  have  been  made  by  illustrious 
intellects  to  solve  this  interesting  problem.  This,  however, 
time  forbids  us  to  do.  All  of  the  great  minds,  from  Vico 
to  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  who  have  studied  the  problem 
have  perceived  and  contributed  some  principles  of  truth 


8 

and  value,  but  none  has  completely  solved  the  problem  in 
its  full  exteut;  and  this,  perhaps,  it  is  impossible  for  a 
human  intellect  to  achieve,  for  the  following  reason:  in 
investigating  the  phenomena  of  nature  there  are  but  two 
elements  with  which  we  have  to  deal — the  formative  ele- 
ment, or  the  law,  and  the  material  or  phenomenal  element, 
through  which  we  trace  the  law  realizing  itself.  But,  in 
the  events  of  human  history,  the  problem  becomes  vastly 
more  complicated,  from  the  fact  that,  wmile  on  the  one 
hand  man,  as  a  free  agent,  bears  himself  the  relation  of  a 
formative  element,  or  law,  to  the  events  which  he  produces; 
on  the  other  hand  he  is  himself  the  material  in  relation  to 
the  higher  providential  law  or  thought,  which,  through 
him,  is  working  out  a  determinate  plan  in  history.  In 
analyzing,. therefore,  the  history  of  nations,  with  a  view  to 
tracing  that  providential  plan,  there  will,  probably,  owing 
to  the  agency  of  an  element  with  so  many  passions  and 
motives  as  man,  always  remain  a  certain  residuum  which 
we  cannot  perfectly  co-ordinate  and  explain.  Nevertheless, 
some  general  principles  have  been  arrived  at,  which  serve 
as  a  clew  to  the  great  drama  of  history.  To  estimate  aright 
the  application  of  these  principles,  two  facts  must  be  borne 
in  mind.  The  one  is  that,  when  we  have  reached  a  law 
of  nature  we  must  accept  it  as  an  ultimate  fact  for  us, 
and  not  vainly  speculate  as  to  why  the  law  is  so  and  not 
otherwise.  The  other  is  that,  through  the  variety  of  a 
given  class  of  phenomena  we  can  trace  the  manifestation 
of  a  general  thought  or  archetypal  idea,  specialized  in  the 
individual  phenomena  of  the  class,  and  harmonizing  them 
all  in  the  unity  of  a  plan.  This  has  been  found  true  in 
every  domain  of  nature,  and  it  does  not  fail  in  the  case  of 
man.  From  the  very  nature  of  the  plan,  these  archetypal 
ideas  cannot  be  fully  realized  iu  any  one  individual  of  a 


9 

class,  but  they  are  the  thought  or  pattern  developing  itself 
through  the  entire  class,  while  each  individual  of  the  class 
may  he  complete  for  itself,  though  exhibiting  but  one  phase 
of  that  general  plan  upon  which  it  is  constructed.  Although 
it  requires  long  and  laborious  induction  to  arrive  at  a  per- 
ception of  the  plan,  yet,  when  it  is  once  conceived,  it  sheds 
wonderful  light,  beauty,  and  unity  upon  all  the  various 
phenomena  which  it  embraces.  Applying  these  principles 
to  the  history  of  nations,  we  shall  find  that,  while  each 
individual  nation  may  possess  a  history  of  its  own,  com- 
plete in  itself,  it  yet  exhibits  but  one  phase  of  that  general 
idea  or  plan  which  is  realizing  itself  through  the  entire 
drama  of  universal  history.  As,  for  the  sake  of  illustra- 
tion, the  archetypal  idea  of  vertebrate  animals  involves  all 
the  various  phases  which  that  idea  includes,  and  as,  from 
these  archetypal  ideas  being  laws  of  God,  they  must  be 
efficient,  and  therefore  be  necessarily  realized,  so,  analo- 
gously, the  archetypal  idea  of  universal  history  must  in- 
volve the  necessary  development,  through  the  various 
phases  of  the  life  of  nations,  of  all  that  is  involved  in  the 
earthly  destiny  of  man.  His  destiny  in  a  future  life,  is  a 
matter  which  belongs  to  the  relations  of  each  individual  to 
his  God;  but,  as  the  destiny  of  man  involves  the  realization 
of  all  that  is  included  in  the  idea  of  man,  our  conception 
of  the  plan  of  universal  history  will  depend  upon  our  con- 
ception of  what  the  idea  of  man  involves  in  reference  to 
his  destiny  or  mission  upon  earth.  But  we  cannot  reach 
this  idea  by  mere  speculation,  nor  have  we  a  right  to  assume 
it  to  be  some  a  priori  conception  of  our  own.  It  must  be 
deduced  from  close  observation  and  reflection  upon  the 
facts  exhibited  in  the  civil,  artistic,  religious,  and  literary 
history  of  nations:  since  thus  only  can  we  perceive  the 
goal  toward  which,  by  the  intrinsic  laws  of   his  own  na- 


10 

fare,  man  has  been  striving  with  more  or  less  success.  AYe 
need  not  suppose  that  every  race  or  people  has  directly 
contributed  something  toward  the  higher  advancement  of 
civilization.  This  is  certainly  not  the  case.  But  every 
race  and  people  have  exhibited,  unconsciously,  some  phase, 
or,  even  in  very  low  forms,  mere  hints,  of  the  general  plan 
in  which  they  were  embraced.  If  we  consider  all  races  as 
distinguished  by  the  broad  classification  of  historical,  or 
those  who  have  developed  a  literature,  and  non-historical, 
or  those  who  have  had  no  literature,  we  find  that  while  the 
latter,  as  exhibiting  a  phase  of  the  idea  of  humanity,  and 
in  their  dialects  as  supplying  certain  phases  of  the  idea  of 
language,  have  a  place  in  the  divine  plan  of  man,  they 
have,  nevertheless,  contributed  nothing  to  civilization.  Of 
the  historical  races,  there  appear  to  have  been  two  primitive 
migrations  from  their  original  seats  in  central  Asia — one 
of  the  Arians  westward,  of  which  we  shall  presently  speak, 
and  one,  still  earlier,  eastward,  of  races  now  represented 
by  the  Indo-Chinese  and  Turanian  peoples.  These  latter 
named  branches,  in  their  civilization  and  dialects,  certainly 
enlarge  our  conception  of  the  idea  of  man,  and  supply  im- 
portant links  or  stages  of  the  development  and  formation 
of  language  —  that  marvellous  implantation  in  humanity 
which  unmistakably  manifests  the  unity  of  an  intelligent 
plan.  But  their  civilization  and  dialects  reached  only  cer- 
tain permanent  stages,  and  it  was  not  their  mission  to 
unfold  those  ideas  further  in  universal  history.  It  is,  how- 
ever, in  the  great  races  which  have  successively  carried  on 
the  progressive  stream  of  civilization  that  we  are  naturally 
to  look  for  the  development  of  that  idea  of  man  which  is 
being  realized  in  the  plan  of  human  history. 

The  present  occasion  not  permitting  an  extensive  and 
critical  induction  from  the  various  histories  of  nations,  it 


11 

will  only  be  possible  to  adduce  some  general  illustration 
in  support  of  the  idea  which  we  desire  to  present.  These 
will  be  naturally  drawn  from  those  races  with  which  we  are 
ethnographically  and  philologieally  connected. 

From  the  vast  table-lands  of  central  Asia  issued  those  re- 
markable Arian  migrations  which  have  so  powerfully  influ- 
enced the  course  of  history.  As  from  that  common  father- 
land, under  the  impulse  of  causes  into  which  we  need  not 
now  inquire,  the  various  races  in  their  migrations  emerge 
into  history,  they  bring  with  them  certain  indelible  types 
and  impresses  which  never  become  wholly  obliterated, 
whatever  may  be  the  national  changes  and  developments 
which  each  race  experiences  as  it  proceeds  upon  its  divinely- 
appointed  mission.  And  thus  amid  even  the  furthest 
wanderers,  and  amid  their  greatest  vicissitudes,  there  will 
he  found  in  their  languages,  their  mythologies,  their  tradi- 
tions, some  memorials  and  lingering  echoes  of  that  distant, 
perchance,  long  forgotten  home.  These  nations  pursued 
two  streams  of  emigration — the  main  stream  always  flowing 
toward  the  north-west,  embracing  the  ancestors  of  the 
Celts,  Greeks,  Romans,  Germans,  Sclavonians ;  and  the 
southern  stream  down  the  river  valleys  of  India.  The 
Hindu,  although  from  the  evidence  of  philology,  probably 
the  eldest  brother  of  this  great  family  of  the  Arian  nations, 
was  also  probably  the  last  to  leave  the  original  home.  But 
as  he  halted  in  his  career  nearer  to  sunrise  than  his  west- 
ward-emigrating brethren,  we  naturally  turn  first  to  con- 
sider the  character  which  he  has  exhibited  in  his  adopted 
home.  Conquering  and  driving  before  him  the  rude  tribes 
of  the  Indian  peninsula,- the  Hindu,  bounded  by  the  ocean 
and  the  mighty  mountains  of  the  north,  surrounded  by 
nature  in  her  vastest  types  of  manifestation,  abandoned 
himself  to  the  realm  of  speculative  thought,  to  the  contem- 


12 

plation  of  the  absolute,  and  meditation  upon  the  eternal. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  the  conditions  of 
physical  geography  have  always  an  important  influence 
upon  national  character  and  development,  and,  as  though  at 
once  inspired  and  oppressed  by  the  mighty  phenomena  of 
nature  around  him,  the  Hindu  felt  his  earthly  existence, 
his  personality,  but  a  transient  illusion  before  that  awful 
powder  w7hich  supported  all,  which  alone  was  real  being, 
and  he  expressed  his  conceptions  in  literary  works  of  un- 
rivalled magnitude.  Religion  and  philosophy  were  the 
spheres  in  which  his  mental  activity  was  absorbed,  and  he 
grappled  with  problems  w.hich  have  often  been  supposed  to 
be  of  modern  and  western  origin.  Of  Hindu  origin,  also, 
was  Buddhism,  the  most  extraordinary  and  widely  extended 
religion  ever  excogitated  by  man,  a  movement  toward  re- 
ligious freedom  and  a  struggle  of  the  soul  for  emancipation. 
It  was. a  reforming  protest  against  a  corrupted  Brahminism  ; 
it  carried  mildness  and  a  degree  of  civilization  to  barbarous 
hordes;  and,  degenerate  as  it  has  become,  it  is  to  this  day 
the  cheerless  hope  of  the  largest  portion  of  the  human 
family. 

The  Hindu,  from  his  contemplative  character,  was  not 
fitted  to  perform  a  great  role  in  the  external  history  of  the 
wrorld;  but  in  his  intellectual  and  religious  speculations  he 
presents  one  of  the  most  remarkable  phases  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  human  mind;  and  it  can  never  be  forgotten 
that  to  the  olden  treasures  and  mysteries  of  his  sacred 
lansrua^e  is  owing:  the  foundation  of  the  science  of  cora- 
parative  philology,  which  has  already  accomplished  so 
much  in  elucidating  a  part  of  the  plan  of  Providence  in 
the  migrations  and  affiliations  of  the  human  family. 

In  the  revolutions  of  the  great  western  Asiatic  empires; 
in    the   revolts  of  their  subject   nations   to  autonomy,  as 


13 

under  the  Assyrian;  in  the  combining  of  diverse  nations 
into  a  universal  polity  without  the  obliteration  of  nation- 
al-ties, as  under  the  Persian  ;  in  the  freer  character  of  art, 
and  in  the  incipient  development  of  commerce,  can  be 
1  raced  an  obscure,  unconscious  movement  of  the  human 
mind  toward  the  ideas  of  freedom  and  of  the  community 
of  humanity  beyond  what  appears  in  the  Hindu,  although 
the  idea  of  the  essential  freedom  of  the  individual  was  not 
yet  developed  as  a  barrier  to  imperial  despotism.  The 
movement  also  of  the  religious  idea  in  the  Arian,  as  mani- 
fested in  the  ancient  Persian,  is  very  remarkable ;  and, 
without  the  profound  speculative  philosophy  of  the  Hindu, 
the  manner  in  which  the  Persian  grappled  with  the  problem 
of  the  Universe  indicates  a  deeper  moral  than  the  Pan- 
theism of  India.  "  The  highest  trinity,"  as  he  calls  it,  of 
Zoroaster,  "  thought,  word,  deed,"  was  more  pregnant  in  its 
moral  signification  than  those  Indian  dreams  which,  while 
stimulating  the  speculative,  paralyzed  the  active  powers  of 
man. 

If  we  pause  for  a  moment  to  contemplate  the  remarkable 
civilization  of  Egypt,  we  discover  beneath  all  its  massive 
fixedness  of  type  a  real  free  movement  of  thought,  a  politi- 
cal and  social  advance,  a  profound  sense  of  the  personality 
of  Deity,  as  distinguished  from  the  all-absorbing  Panthe- 
ism of  the  Hindu,  and  a  sober  and  firm  barrier  against  the 
wild  orgiastic  Worships  of  the  nations  on  their  east,  and 
the  savagism  of  the  uncultured  tribes  on  their  west  and 
south.  What  impulse  or  elements  toward  the  genera- 
progress  of  human  civilization  Egypt  afforded  to  the  peof 
pie  who  eame  in  contact  with  her  can  never  be  fully  ascer- 
tained; but  within  her  own  sphere  her  mission  was  fulfilled 
with  fidelity,  and  we  reverently  recognize  the  Divine  Hand 
which  appointed  her  to   exemplify  another  phase   of  that 


14 

idea  of  humanity,  the  plan  of  which  he  is  unfolding  in  the 
history  of  nations. 

The  part  assigned  in  history  to  the  Hebrew  nation  is 
known  to  all.  The  spirit  of  freedom  moved  in  their  na- 
tional life,  and,  from  the  very  constitution  of  their  tribes,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  any  Hebrew  monarch  to 
have  consolidated  the  nation  into  a  despotism  like  Persia 
or  Assyria.  In  times  of  corruption,  when  priest  and  king 
were  faithless  to  their  mission,  the  divine  fire  ever  burned 
in  the  breasts  of  their  prophets ;  and  this  nation  in  whom 
was  planted  a  profound  sense  of  the  relation  of  man  to  a 
revealed  Creator  and  Judge,  through  the  medium  of  Chris- 
tianity, imparted  this  sacred  deposit  to  the  Gentiles. 

But  it  is  to  the  westward  migrating  branches  of  the 
great  Arian  family  that  the  most  conspicuous  parts  have 
been  assigned.  u  They  have  been,"  says  Max  Mu'ller  (the 
most  competent  authority  to  pronounce  upon  the  subject), 
athe  prominent  actors  in  the  great  drama  of  history,  and 
have  carried  to  their  fullest  growth  all  the  elements. of 
active  life  with  which  our  nature  is  endowed  .  .  .  we  learn 
from  their  literature  and  works  of  art  the  elements  of 
science,  the  laws  of  art,  and  the  principles  of  philosophy. 
In  continual  struggle  with  each  other  and  with  Semitic 
and  Chamitic  races  these  Arian  nations  have  become  the 
rulers  of  history,  and  it  seems  to  be  their  mission  to  link 
all  parts  of  the  world  together  by  the  chains  of  civiliza- 
tion, commerce,  and  religion."  This  observation  of  the 
learned  scholar  suggests  the  remarkable,  and  often  noticed 
fact,,  that  the  stream  of  humanity  has  always  manifested 
its  capacity  for  the  development  of  higher  civilization  as  it 
flowed  westward  from  its  Asiatic  home  —  thus  indicating  a 
gradual  unfolding  of  the  divine  plan  or  idea  of  man.  Man 
is    not   merely  one    of  a  collection    of   individual  human 


15 

beings,  he  is  a  member  of  the  organic  body  of  humanity  ; 

and,  if  history  be  not  a  mere  illusive  Hindu  dream,  there 
is  ae  really  a  unity  of  life  of  humanity  as  there  is  of  the 
individuals  who  compose  it. 

Of  the  races  which  emerged  from  the  westward-emigrat- 
ing Arians,  the  three  most  distinguished  have  been  the 
Greeks,  the  Romans,  aud  the  Germanic  nations;  and  it 
would  appear  that  in  proportion,  not  to  the  mere  com- 
mingling, but  to  the  thorough  fusion  of  cognate  stocks, 
giving  birth  to  new  and  distinctive  nationalities,  has  been 
developed  the  capacity  for  progress  in  civilization.  Thus 
the  Greek,  the  Roman,  the  modern  German,  and  the 
English,  while  each  presenting  a  distinct  nationality,  were 
each  the  ultimate  product  of  the  thorough  fusion  of  various 
antecedent  elements.  The  Greek  when  he  appears  upon 
the  stage  of  history  exhibits  most  marked  contrasts  to  the 
Hindu,  who  preserved  his  blood  unmixed  as  he  brought 
it  from  his  Arian  fatherland.  The  one  feeling  his  sense  of 
personality  absorbed  in  the  infinite;  the  other  the  most,  in- 
dividualized of  human  beings.  The  one  awe-struck  before 
the  overwhelming  vastness  of  the  phenomena  of  nature  ; 
the  other  subduing  nature  to  every  human  appliance,  and 
catching  from  the  inspiration  of  her  beauty  that  matchless 
art  whereby  the  touch  of  the  Grecian1  chisel  has  made 
stone  more  precious  than  gold.  The  one  taxing  his  im- 
agination to  embody  in  gigantic,  unearthly,  enigmatic 
forms  his  conceptions  of  the  mysterious  powers  of  his 
divinity;  the  other  humanizing  his  gods,  incarnating  them 
in  the  passions  as  well  as  the  beauty  of  man,  and  making 
them  his  confidential  familiars.  The  one  reposing  in  the 
shadow  of  his  god-derived  monarchs  ;  the  other  pressing 
his  instinct  of  personal  freedom  to  the  extreme  bounds  of 
turbulent  democracy.     In  short,  to  the  one  the  present  was 


16 

the  dream,  the  future  the  reality;  while  to  the  other  the 
future  was  the  land  of  shadows,  the  present  was  the  life  of 
real  and  most  intense  activity. 

The  spontaneous  and  indigenous  development  of  Gre- 
cian freedom,  literature,  philosophy,  and  art,  and  the  rela- 
tive perfection  to  which  they  were  carried,  render  Greek 
civilization  the  most  marvelous  phenomenon  in  the  pro- 
gress of  humanity.  Purely  intellectual  and  artistic  de- 
velopment could  he  carried  no  further;  they  have  heen 
teachers  of  all  subsequent  times,  they  imparted  a  regener- 
ating impulse  to  the  European  mind,  and  their  history  is 
an  abiding  prophecy  of  modern  politics.  There  was  in  the 
Grecian  spirit  a  consciousness  that  history  was  provi- 
dential, that  there  were  eternal  laws  of  justice  which 
governed  its  events,  and  it  was  their  philosophy  which 
led  to  the  all-important  truth  that  reason  cannot  err,  how- 
ever much  reasoning  may,  even  by  offending  against  reason 
itself. 

When  Grecian  nature  could  no  longer  develop  itself  in 
the  extreme  personal  freedom  of  the  individual,  \t  suc- 
cumbed to  the  fate  which  overwhelmed  it,  and  that  fate  it 
found  in  the  mighty  Roman.  By  a  wonderful  disposition 
of  Providence  that  very  limitation  of  the  individual,  which 
was  the  downfall  of  the  Greek  genius,  was  the  ground 
from  which  sprang,  in  the  Roman,  a  new  and  energetic 
phase  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  personal  freedom, 
the  Very  individuality  of  the  Roman  was  rooted  ineradi- 
cably  in  the  being  of  the  state.  Aristocracy  and  democ- 
racy in  Greece  were  self- rending  factions  ;  in  Rome  they 
were  fundamental  principles,  antagonistic  it  is  true,  but 
organic  principles  in  the  life  of  the  state,  whose  very 
antagonism  wrought  out  that  homogeneous,  self-balanced, 
and   lawful  liberty  which  was  the  glory  and  strength  of 


the  old  commonwealth  and  the  foundation  of  her  invin- 
cible power.  Her  long  and  fruitful  discipline  in  settling 
rights  between  patrician  and  plebs  trained  her  for  her 
grand  mission  of  giving  law  to  the  world.  The  sanctity 
of  his  relation  to  the  state  inspired  the  Roman  with  that 
profound  conviction  of  duty,  with  those  sublime  instances 
of  self-sacrifice,  and  with  that  undoubting  faith  in  his 
appointed  work,  which  enabled  him  calmly  to  face  disaster, 
to  look  down  upon  the  pomp  of  kings,  and,  amid  all  of 
his  faults  and  cruelties,  to  deserve  the  gratitude  of  the 
world,  for  h,is  very  conquests  were  made  in  the  spirit  of 
civilization.  And  that  civilization,  spread  by  his  arms  and 
enlightened  by  his  civil  law,  was  the  noble  type  which 
Christianity  took  hold  of,  and  strove  to  impress  with  the 
divine  characteristics  of  peace  on  earth  and  good  will 
to  men. 

When  we  turn  to  the  Germanic  nations,  the  commingling 
of  peoples  and  the  various  movements  in  the-development 
of  their  civilization  become  vastly  complex.  Uulike  the 
Greek  and  Roman,  those  northern  nations  received  from 
without  the  impulse  toward  the  path  which  they  pursued 
in  developing  their  civilization.  It  was  from  the  ruins  of 
the  Roman  empire  that  they  appropriated  the  elements  of 
their  culture,  their  laws,  and  their  religion.  But  these 
were  received  into  a  noble  soil,  in  which  an  instinctive 
feeling  of  the  dignity  and  worth  of  the  individual  as  man, 
and  an  active  spirit  of  freedom,  were  already  indigenous. 
These  elements  were  gradually  moulded  into  new  forms  of 
Christian  nations;  and  while  in  the  east  the  degenerate 
Byzantine  representative  of  the  olden  civilization,  thor- 
oughly corrupted  and  effete,  wTas  sinkiug  to  its  inevitable 
doom,  these  nations  in  the  west  were  preparing  for  the 
manifestation  of  a  spirit  more  comprehensive  and  universal 
2 


18 

in  its  conceptions  and  aims  than  the  world  had  ever  yet 
witnessed.  The  Church  contributed  to  this  result  by  that 
bond  whereby  out  of  diverse  nations  one  Christendom  was 
created.  But  the  Church,  in  subduing  the  world  to  her 
authority,  became  herself  thoroughly  worldly;  and  there 
was  a  long  period  of  corruption,  struggles,  and  reactions 
before  western  humanity  emerged  in  all  its  mighty  vitality 
in  modern  Europe.  The  reaction  against  the  centralization 
of  the  Charlemagnic  empire  upon  its  breaking  up — the 
good  origin,  the  subsequent  tyranny,  and  the  decay  of  the 
feudal  system,  the  incalculably  powerful  impulse  of  the 
reformation,  are  some  of  the  indications  of  that  movement 
of  mind  by  which  God  was  developing  the  plan  of  history. 

While  these  western  sons  of  the  Arians  were  thus  receiv- 
ing their  education  a  remarkable  phenomenon  appeared 
among  a  Semitic  people  in  the  rise  of  Mohammedanism. 
It  rapidly  reached  its  fullest  bloom,  and  became  corrupt. 
Its  basis  was  too  narrow  to  make  it  the  religion  of  universal 
civilization;  but  it  did  carry  a  certain  civilization  and 
higher  religion  to  pagan  peoples,  and  it  furnishes  an  ever 
memorable  example  of  what  an  earnest,  energetic,  and 
active  faith  in  one  great  idea  can  enable  a  nation  to  accom- 
plish. 

We  now  see  humanity  in  western  Europe  at  the  highest 
point  of  development  which  it  has  ever  reached.  In  Ger- 
many and  France  the  horizon  of  intellectual  freedom  in 
science,  learning,  criticism,  and  philosophy  has  been  im- 
measurably enlarged;  and  the  whole  history  of  England  is 
that  of  the  progress  of  constitutional  liberty.  Powerful  as 
has  been  the  influence  of  Christianity  upon  national  forms, 
if  its  effects  do  not  seem  to  be  commensurate  with  the 
progress  of  nations  in  other  respects  it  is  because  Christian- 
ity deals  with  the  spiritual  nature  of  individual  men ;  its 


19 

true  kingdom  is  invisible;  it  has  its  real  confessors  who, 
through  fidelity  to  its  spirit,  have  been  morally  martyrized 
by  bigotry  and  fanaticism,  even  in  free  Christian  lands, 
where  the  material  fires  of  persecution  are  no  longer  in 
vogue.  But  we  believe  that  its  divine  spirit  will  yet 
triumph  over  evil  and  ignorance,  and  lead  humanity  into 
that  spiritual  liberty  with  which  God  intends  that  it  shall 
be  free. 

Regarding  humanity  as  an  organic  whole,  prossessing 
one  intelligence,  allotted  in  different  phases  and  degrees 
to  nations  as  to  individuals,  we  deduce  from  a  historical 
analysis  made  in  the  spirit  which  we  have  endeavored  to 
indicate  what  is  the  idea  of  man  which  is  being1  realized 
in  human  history.  It  is  that  of  a  being  gradually  develop- 
ing increasing  freedom  of  thought,  politics,  art,  and  reli- 
gion ;  or,  in  other  words,  human  nature  coming,  under  the 
guidance  of  a  divine  plan,  to  fuller  and  fuller  consciousness 
of  its  inherent  free  powers. 

We  may  trace,  then,  the  following  lines  of  development 
in  the  plan  of  universal  history,  the  deep  current  of  which 
Providence  has  been  steadily  carrying  on,  notwithstanding 
the  eddies  and  seeming  retrogressions  which  have  appeared 
upon  the  surface  from  time  to  time;  these  have  been  owing 
to  that  free  will  of  man  which  is  necessary  for  the  develop- 
ment of  his  history,  but  the  great  plan  has  ever  steadily 
flowed  on.  AVe  may  trace,  as  tending  to  certain  specific 
ends, 

The  evolution,  through  the  various  stages  and  forms  of 
dialects,  of  the  unity  of  the  phenomena  of  Language ; 

The  evolution  of  the  Religious  Idea,  from  the  ground  of 
a  feeling  of  subjection  to,  and  dependence  upon,  supra- 
human  powers,  and  the  unfolding  of  the  innate  ground  of 


20 

moral    obligation,   as   the   basis  of  the  possibility  of*  any 
appeal  from  revelation; 

The  evolution  of  the  idea  of  Political  Organization  and 
of  the  state  from  the  ground  of  the  family  and  the  social 
instincts ; 

The  evolution  of  the  constructive  and  imaginative  ca- 
pacities through  the  expression  of  Art; 

The  evolution  of  the  fundamental  categories  of  Thought, 
in  its  endeavors  to  comprehend  and  solve  the  problem  of 
the  Universe,  manifested  through  the  history  of  philosophy. 

The  different  nations  are  found  manifesting  various  de- 
grees of  approximation  to  these  ends,  as  they  have  been 
gradually  evolved  in  the  consciousness  of  humanity;  and 
all  of  these  ends  are  contributing  to,  and  harmonized  and 
included  in,  the  higher  end  of  a  civilization  the  culmina- 
tion of  which  points  to  the  brotherhood  of  nations,  in  the 
bonds  of  religion,  commerce,  lawful  liberty,  and  peace. 

Toward  this  goal  the  historical  nations  have  ever  been 
striving,  each  unconsciously  contributing  to  the  idea  of 
progressive  civilization.  And  until  those  capacities  of  man 
which  can  only  be  worked  out  in  this  sphere  have  reached 
their  goal  we  cannot  say  that  his  destiny  on  earth  is  ac- 
complished ;  but  it  becomes  our  solemn  duty,  as  nations 
and  as  individuals,  to  perform  with  fidelity  whatever  mis- 
sion is  allotted  to  us  toward  the  fulfilment  of  that  destiny. 
How  dare  we  despair  of  humanity,  when  its  development 
is  the  unfolding  of  the  idea  of  God  in  history  ?  We  may 
be  faithless  and  recreant  to  our  trust ;  but  the  divine  ideas 
are  efficient  laws,  which,  in  their  inevitable  march  toward 
fulfilment,  will  bless  and  save  us  if  we  be  willing  instru- 
ments and  co-operators,  or  will  crush  and  annihilate  us  if 
<we  madly  and  impiously  attempt  to  arrest  them. 

Movement  is  the  ^veat  law  of  the  universe.     AW  per- 


21 

ceive  it  in  the  ceaseless  courses  of  the  heavenly  bodies;  in 
the  remotest  depths  of  space  there  is  no  sign  of  immo- 
bility. Upon  the  inorganic  matter  of  our  own  planet  there 
are  ever-operating  mechanical  forces  in  activity,  elevating 
or  depressing  continents,  moving  the  unresting  flow  of  the 
ocean's  tides,  grinding  down  by  imperceptible  hut  steady 
power  the  seemingly  eternal  granite  of  the  enduring  moun- 
tains, and  urging  in  perpetual  flux  and  transition  every 
atom  of  material  phenomena.  In  the  organic  kingdoms 
again,  movement  and  evolution  are  the  law  and  condition 
of  life  and  development  —  no  longer  mechanical,  but  dy- 
namic powers,  manifesting  themselves  in  vegetable  and 
animal  growth,  and  unfolding  in  each  the  unity  of  a  gen- 
eral, comprehensive  idea  through  various  successive  special 
types.  So  in  humanity,  as  the  material  through  which 
they  work,  the  same  laws  of  movement  and  evolution  are 
gradually  unfolding,  through  special  types  of  nations,  the 
capacities  of  man,  as  he  comes,  in  various  stages,  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  powers  with  which  he  is  endowed.  In 
certain  outgrowths  of  this  common  humanity  we  find  it 
exhibiting  but  the  dawning  of  those  moral  and  intellectual 
potentialities  which  lie  deeply  embosomed  in  the  common 
nature  of  man  ;  and  so  far  only  does  the  mission  of  such 
rude  peoples  extend.  In  others,  we  find  in  the  structure 
of  their  dialects  an  advanced  consciousness  of  those  mys- 
terious powers  of  language  which  are  implanted  in  hu- 
manity, and  a  higher  conception  of  social,  political,  and 
moral  life;  while  they  stop  at  this  phase,  it  not  being  given 
them  to  exhibit  further  that  many-sided  idea  of  man  which 
can  only  be  unfolded  in  the  ages  and  evolutions  of  nations. 
Some  races,  having  developed  their  allotted  original  phase, 
are  destined  to  receive  further  elements  of  culture  from, 
and  under  the  direction  of,  races  of  superior  powers,  or  to 


22 

wane  and  disappear  before  the  higher  and  more  potent 
type  of  human  capacity.  In  others,  we  find  humanity 
evolving  in  still  fuller  consciousness  those  latent  powers 
which  had  been  obscurely  working  to  light,  and  contribut- 
ing toward  the  possibility  and  realization  of  civilization  in 
its  most  comprehensive  signification ;  while  others,  finally, 
have  assimilated,  as  it  were,  new  nourishment  from  the 
fruitful  deposit  of  the  labors  and  -contributions  of  their  pre- 
decessors, and  opened  still  larger  conceptions  of  the  nature 
and  destiny  of  man.  Gathering  up  all  these,  various  mani- 
festations of  history  they  impress  us  with  irresistible  force 
as  pointing  to  the  unity  of  one  idea  and  one  plan.  Devel- 
opment and  progress  are  inseparable  from  this  idea ;  they 
are  the  necessary  conditions  of  vitality;  when  they  cease, 
stagnation  and  death  ensue  ;  when  they  cease  for  a  nation, 
its  course  is  run  ;  when  they  are  accomplished  for  man,  he 
will  have  fulfilled  the  mission  which  God  has  allotted  to 
him  upon  earth. 

In  this  conception  of  history  no  people  have  existed 
wholly  without  a  meaning;  the  rude  carvings  of  the  savage 
islander  upon  his  oar  or  club,  like  the  rudimentary,  un- 
developed organ  in  certain  stages  of  animal  organization, 
was  a  type  and  prophecy  of  future  development  in  the  unity 
of  a  plan  —  it  was  the  humble  indication  of  those  mental 
conceptions  which  displayed  themselves  in  the  full  bloom 
and  glory  of  Grecian  art.  And  not  only  have  no  people 
existed  without  a  meaning,  but  no  national  movement  has 
been  without  deeper  signification  than  its  merely  national 
aspect;  the  dreadful  portent  of  the  old  French  Kevolution 
was  not  a  mere  godless  outbreak,  the  result  of  a  false  phi- 
losophy in  religion,  morals,  and  politics,  however  much 
this  may  have  had  to  do  in  shaping  its  course;  it  was  the 
cry  and  struggle,  though  dark  and  blind,  yet  the  cry  and 


23 

struggle  of  the  truest  instincts  of  humanity,  for  light  and 
relief,  against  the  unnatural  and  intolerable  oppression  of 
a  faithlessness,  falsehood,  corruption,  and  abuse,  which 
contemned  and  mocked  all  that  is  sacred  in  human  natufe. 
Providence  has  given  in  that  revolution  a  lesson  to  rulers 
and  people  which  may  yet  prove  prophetic  with  respect  to 
those  who  are  too  blind  to  read  it  aright. 

If  it  is  now  our  privilege,  by  the  light  of  past  history,  to 
perceive  and  trace  a  divine  plan — to  see  that  no  nation  can 
live  only  for  itself — how  greatly  does  this  fact  increase  our 
responsibilities,  by  pressing  upon  us  the  conviction  that  we, 
too,  have  our  mission  to  perform.  And  how  much  stricter 
an  account  may  be  exacted  of  us,  since  it  is  ours,  not 
blindly,  but  consciously  to  act  for  the  blessing  or  curse  of 
humanity. 

The  United  States  started  upon  their  career  with  the 
greatest  advantages  which  had  ever  been  accorded  to  any 
people.  They  started  from  the  basis  of  advanced  civiliza- 
tion, they  had  the  example  and  lessons  of  all  past  history, 
they  had  a  political  training  in  their  colonial  growth,  and 
they  inherited  an  invaluable  system  of  law  and  constitu- 
tional principles  from  their  mother  country.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  boundless  resources  of  a  new  continent  invited 
their  energies,  and  commerce  courted  their  sails  with  every 
breeze.  With  Law  and  Freedom  as  their  watchword,  they 
were  looked  to  as  the  refuge  of  the  oppressed,  the  home  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty,  the  political  hope  of  the  ends  of 
the  earth.  And  yet  they  have  ignominiously  failed,  as 
every  attempt  to  preserve  free  institutions  must  fail  when 
unscrupulous  selfishness  supplants  justice  and  equity,  and 
demagogism  makes  a  mockery  of  virtue  and  statesman- 
ship. Our  Confederacy  enters  into  the  great  drama  of 
history  possessing  as  its  large  inheritance  all  with  which 


24,    • 

the  old  Union  commenced  its  career,  and  with  the  terrible 
lesson  of  its  failure  besides.  To  presume  to  say  that,  if 
we  also  fail,  the  hope  of  human  liberty,  of  constitutional 
freedom,  is  but  a  despairing  dream  would  be  blasphemy 
against-  Providence,  as  though  in  its  infinite  -armory  it 
possessed  no  other  instruments  for  realizing  what  it  has 
implied  in  the  idea  of  man.  But  in  that  idea  is  implied 
the  attainment  of  such  freedom ;  and  we  may  well  and 
reverently  ponder  whether  we  are  not  entrusted  with  the 
furtherance  of  it.  If  our  struggle  is  only  for  a  selfish  inde- 
pendence, in  which,  when  we  shall  have  achieved  it,  wTe 
are  to  act  over  again  among  ourselves  the  old  history  of 
the  struggle  of  sectional  parties  for  power,  then  we  are 
inevitably  destined  to  further  disruption,  if  not  civil  war. 
But  if  we  are  true  to  ourselves,  if  we  are  not  blind  to  the 
indications  of  Providence,  we  have  the  glorious,  but  awfully 
responsible  mission  of  exhibiting  to  the  world  that  su- 
premest  effort  of  humanity  —  the  foundation  of  a  political 
organization,  in  which  the  freedom  of  every  member  is  the 
result  of  law,  is  preserved  by  justice,  is  harmonized  by  the 
true  relations  of  labor  and  capital,  and  is  sanctified  by  the 
divine  spirit  of  Christianity. 

It  is  a  truism  —  but  truisms  are  the  embodiment  of  uni- 
versal truth  —  that  man  can  only  develop  all  of  his  capaci- 
ties in  the  organism  of  the  state.  But  states  grow  out 
of  the  characteristics  and  exigencies  of  a  people;  every 
attempt  to  form  them  artificially  has  proved  a  failure  ;  no 
constitution  given  from  without  —  which  has  not  grown 
organically  as  the  embodiment  of  the  political  spirit  and 
wants  of  the  nation  —  can  possess  vitality ;  and  it  is  there- 
fore as  shallow  as  it  is  unphilosophical  and  ignoring  of  the 
hand  of  Providence  to  say,  in  great  developments  and  revo- 
lutions of  people,  that  we  would  have  this  event  otherwise, 


•25 

or  that  constitution  regulated  according  to  our  notions  of 
the  best  or  strongest  government  for  the  times.  Provi- 
dence, by  its  inevitable  laws,  working  through  nations, 
regulates  these  things;  and  it  is  our  duty  in  such  times  to 
perform  faithfully  the  part  allotted  to  us,  without  a  doubt 
that  Providence  is  accomplishing  that  which  is  most  agree- 
able to  its  all-seeing  plan.  Doubtless  we  may  have  wished 
the  accomplishment  of  our  desires  without  the  dreadful 
throes  and  pangs  of  revolution  ;  but  the  law  of  antagonism 
is  inexorable  in  nature.  Nothing  noble,  nothing  enduring, 
comes  to  birth  without  struggle  and  conflict.  But  this 
antagonism  is,  for  man,  an  antagonism  against  evil.  It  is 
the  setting  up  of  his  selfish  will  as  his  centre  which  is  the 
root  of  moral  evil.  In  the  lan^uas-e  of  that  lamented  scholar 
and  philosopher,  the  late  Mr.  Bunsen,  "this  free  will  gives 
man  the  awful  power  of  appropriating  to  self  what  is 
God's;  of  substituting  his  self-interest  and  pride  for  the 
ideas  of  what  is  good,  and  just,  and  true.  By  being  allowed 
to  realize  this  power,  which  realization  is  the  evil  and  the 
sin,  his  conscience  tells  him  that  he  is  self-responsible  .  .  . 
Thus  freewill  includes  necessarily  the  power  of  not  follow- 
ing the  will  of  God  and  the  dictates  of  conscience  and 
enlightened  reason,  but  of  acting  accordiug  to  that  negation 
of  the  divine  will  potentially  contained  in  self.  By  divine 
necessity,  what  is  the  origin  of  evil  becomes  the  impelling 
power  of  development  in  universal  history.  Evil  exists 
only  through  man,  but  it  exists  as  the  condition  of  his  free 
agency,  and  of  the  realization  of  the  divine  mind  in  finite 
nature."  These  wTords  of  the  clear-sighted  philosopher 
suggest  a  key  to  many  seeming  anomalies  in  history. 
When  nations  or  individuals  violate  those  eternal  princi- 
ples of  right  which  Providence  has  implanted  as  a  witness 
in  the  conscience  of  humanity  they  must  suffer  the  penalty, 


26 

although  their  violent  and  selfish  courses  are  overruled  to 
the  furtherance  of  the  divine  plans.  History  and  biography 
are  so  pregnant  with  this  truth  that  it  would  require  a  vol- 
ume to  condense  the  illustrations  which  they  afford.  It  is 
as  true  of  nations  as  of  individuals,  that  through  trials,  trib- 
ulations, conflicts,  antagonism,  their  virtue  is  evoked  and 
their  faith  is  perfected.  But  if  national  trials  do  not  awaken 
in  a  people  a  reliance  upon  Providence,  and  an  exhibition 
of  truthfulness,  justice,  virtue  and  humanity,  they  may 
become  the  prey  of  the  most  abject  degradation  and  the 
most  vulgar  tyranny. 

That  man  is  made  not  a  machine,  but  a  responsible 
being,  is  a  noble  prerogative,  because  it  invests  him  with 
the  sacred  attribute  of  the  freedom  of  his  will ;  but  that 
very  attribute  is  made  by  Providence  the  instrument  of 
working  out  the  plan  of  history.  A  great  destiny  is  offered 
to  our  Confederacy;  we  may  accept  it,  and  become  a  glory 
among  the  nations,  or  we  may  refuse  it,  and  be  made  a 
warning  example  to  the  ages  to  come.  According  to  our 
national  characteristics  wTill  be  our  place  in  history,  and 
every  individual  is  contributing  to  these.  We  have  the 
past  to  guide  us ;  we  have  the  future,  to  a  certain  extent, 
in  our  hands.  We  have  a  great  lesson  to  teach  the  world 
with  respect  to  the  relation  of  races:  that  certain  races  are 
permanently  inferior  in  their  capacities  to  others,  and  that 
the  African  who  is  intrusted  to  our  care  can  only  reach 
the  amount  of  civilization  and  development  of  which  he  is 
capable — can  only  contribute  to  the  benefit  of  humanity  in 
the  position  in  which  God  has  placed  him  among  us.  In 
developing  and  exchanging  our  peculiar  agricultural  re- 
sources we  have  a  mission  of  peace  and  benefaction  to  the 
w6rld.  In  developing  our  intellectual  resources  we  have  a 
basis  to  lay  for  liberal  education,  untrammelled  by  the  die- 


tation  of  government,  untainted  by  the  prejudices  of  fanat- 
icism, not  enfeebled  by  the  shallowness  of  a  pretended 
encyclopaedic  knowledge,  nor  cramped  by  servile  and  igno- 
rant adherence  to  exploded  errors,  but  based  upon  the 
solid  results  of  true  learning  and  consecrated  by  the  prin- 
ciples of  undefiled  religion.  Above  all,  we  have  the  re- 
sponsibility of  showing  that  virtue  and  justice  are  essential 
elements  in  the  capacity  for  self-government.  If  such  is 
our  mission,  and  we  fulfil  it  with  fidelity  as  a  Christian 
people,  then  the  history  of  our  Confederacy  will  be  another 
great  chapter  in  the  theodicy  of  nations,  justifying  the 
wavs  of  Providence  to  man. 


Gentlemen  of  the  Graduating  Class  : 

Contemplating  history  as  the  evolution  in  time  of  the 
divine  idea  of  humanity,  we  find  the  Deity  making  all 
races,  whatever  may  be  their  diversity  of  origin,  of  one 
nature,  having  determined  the  particular  times  of  their 
migrations  and  appearance  in  the  drama  of  history,  and 
the  bounds  of  their  appointed  habitations,  that,  in  their 
respective  order  and  sphere,  they  should  progressively  de- 
velop the  nature  and  destiny  of  man.  But  as  the  free-will 
of  the  individual  has  been  the  instrument  of  working  out 
this  plan,  we  find  an  infinite  complexity  in  the  movements 
and  actions  of  nations,  and  in  the  particular  phases  of 
human  nature  which  they  have  manifested,  while  we  can 
still  trace  the  general  and  consistent  evolution  of  the  ideas 
of  art.  science,  politics,  and  religion.  While  we  thus  dis- 
cover a  plan,  involving  a  goal  toward  which  civilization  is 
tending  by  inevitable  laws  which  man  can  neither  resist 
nor  control,  laws  which  are  necessitating-  the  realization  of 


28 

all  that  is  potential  in  the  idea  of  man,  we  find  at  the  same 
time  that,  in  the  sphere  of  moral  freedom,  nations  stamp 
their  own  character  for  glory  or  infamy  upon  the  records  of 
history.  And  in  this  sphere  we  find  Divine  Providence 
dealing  with  them  as  moral  agents,  giving  them  blessing 
and  prosperity  in  proportion  to  their  fidelity  to  truth, 
justice,  right,  and  humanity;  or,  while  overruling  their 
actions  in  subservience  to  the  general  plan,  suffering  them 
to  become  the  self-punished  victims  of  their  own  follies 
and  crimes.  In  thus  contemplating  God  in  history  from 
this  twofold  point  of  view,  as  working  out  through  man 
an  inevitable  plan,  and  as  dealing  with  human  actions 
according  to  the  immutable  law  of  right,  we  derive  a 
ground  of  confidence  as  to  the  future  of  a  nation  and  an 
incentive  to  duty  as  to  our  individual  responsibility.  The 
world  combined  cannot  deprive  a  nation  of  its  destined 
place  in  history  and  of  the  lesson  which  it  will  teach;  but 
upon  us,  as  citizens  and  individuals,  rests  a  great  responsi- 
bility as  to  what  that  place  and  lesson  shall  be.  Nothing 
true,  just,  faithful,  and  earnest  has  ever  existed  in  vain; 
and  these  are  qualities  which,  by  God's  help,  it  is  the  pre- 
rogative of  even  the  humblest  to  cultivate.  The  inexorable 
law  of  Providence,  making  human  agents  the  instruments 
of  his  plan,  despite  their  own  intentions,  has  already  been 
made  conspicuous  in  our  own  history;  for  how  little  did 
our  present  foes  conceive  that,  in  the  years  of  selfish,  un- 
scrupulous aggression  upon  the  constitutional  rights  and 
equality  of  the  South,  they  were  actually  forcing  on  the 
birth  of  a  new  and  independent  nation.  As  to  the  dealing 
of  Providence  with  those  foes  and  with  ourselves,  as  re- 
sponsible free  agents,  that  lies  yet  in  the  undeveloped 
future;  but  this,  at  least,  we  may  lay  seriously  to  heart,  as 
most  certain  truth,  that  any  people  among  whom  the  hour 


of  national  trial  develops  at  once  a  deep  seated  social  and 
political  corruption — a  system  of  falsehood  and  avarice, 
which  sweeps  within  its  contaminating  vortex  even  those 
who  ought  to  he  the  representatives  and  guardians  of  truth 
and  justice,  which  suddenly  paralyzes  all  sense  of  dignity, 
self-respect,  and  true  liberty  —  such  a  people  bear  within 
themselves  the  seeds  of  inevitable  retribution.  Let  us 
ponder  upon  these  truths,  take  warning,  be  humble,  and 
be  wise  —  wise  with  that  truest  wisdom  which  is  the  off- 
spring of  Christian  virtue. 

If  our  country  is,  as  we  believe  her  to  be,  commissioned 
by  God  to  contend  for  and  illustrate  great  principles,  inti- 
mately connected  with  the  progress  of  humanity,  what  is 
it  to  her  if  the  world  should  now  misunderstand  her  mis- 
sion, and  seal  against  her  its  sympathies?  It  is  not  suc- 
cess, it  is  fidelity  to  those  principles,  which  will  ennoble 
her  in  that  grand  scroll  of  history  which  God  is  unrolling 
through  the  ages,  emblazoned  with  the  record  of  His  plan. 
In  that  record  a  thousand  years  are  but  as  yesterday;  and 
that  same  inexorable  time,  which  crumbles  the  material 
pomj)  of  empires,  inscribes  the  ineffaceable  and  unerring 
verdict  of  the  character  and  worth  of  nations.  What  are 
the  glories  of  the  Asiastic  empires,  stained  with  unre- 
deemed cruelties,  to  the  light,  and  lessons,  and  kindling 
associations  which  encircle  the  names  of  Judea,  Greece, 
and  Rome  ?  But  that  God  who,  working  through  history 
makes  it  so  grand,  calls  us  individually  to  battle  in  a  field 
where  He  stands  ready  to  help  us,  and  where,  if  wre  repel 
Ilim  not,  the  victory  is  certain.  That  field  is  within  us; 
that  battle  is  with  self,  with  all  that  is  unworthy,  and  de- 
grading, and  unholy.  However  obscure,  however  isolated 
we  may  be,  there  is  no  escaping  that  conflict  if  we  be  not 
sunk  in  the  illusion  of  a  dream,  and  if  there  has  ever  been 


30 

kindled  in  us  one  aspiration  for  a  true  and  noble  life. 
There  we  need  no  spectators,  no  human  applause,  no  exter- 
nal antagonists  to  triumph  over;  each  conqueror  there, 
though  a  beggar,  is  a  crowned  king,  and,  though  buffetted 
b}*  the  ephemeral  despite  and  troubles  of  the  world,  basks 
in  the  serenity  of  a  conscience  reconciled  with  duty  and 
glowing  with  that  peace  of  God  which  passeth  under- 
standing. 

About  to  enter  as  you  are  upon  life,  in  the  midst  of 
events  still  so  much  involved  in  the  turbulence  of  revolu- 
tion as  to  render  it  difficult  for  us  to  estimate  fully  what 
may  be  the  magnitude  of  their  influence  upon  future  his- 
tory, it  appeared  to  me  that  I  could  select  no  theme  more 
appropriate  for  the  present  occasion  than  the  one  to  which 
your  attention  has  been  invited.  For  although  the  subject 
has  been  barely  sketched  in  rudest  and  most  imperfect 
outline,  yet  what  reflections  can  more  worthily  occupy  us 
at  a  time  like  this  than  those  which  tend  to  impress  upon 
us  the  truth  that  human  history  is  no  mass  of  arbitrary, 
disorganized  events,  but  that  amid  the  most  stormy  con- 
vulsions and  the  fiercest  ebullitions  of  human  passion 
there  is  a  Divine  Providence  directing  with  steady  and 
intelligent  hand  the  development  of  its  plan,  and  making 
that  plan  subservient  to  the  cause  of  humanity.  With  this 
conviction,  it  would  be  impiety  to  despair  in  the  darkest 
hour  of  our  country's  trial,  and  in  the  hour  of  her  success 
we  will  feel  a  more  solemn  sense  of  duty  as  instruments 
for  accomplishing  her  divinely-appointed  mission.  And 
amid  the  bitter  trials  with  which  this  war  has  afflicted  us, 
it  may  be  regarded  as  one  ground  of  resignation  that  they 
have  been  no  arbitrary  inflictions  of  mere  Omnipotent 
will,  but  the  necessary  results  of  the  wise  law  whereby 
God  is  working  out  our  destiny.     But  the  same  God  in 


u 

history  is  the  God  in  the  consolations  of  religion,  and  these 
point  to  a  future  home  without  grief — the  abode  of  love, 
and  puritv,  and  peace.  There  is  no  feature  of  this  war 
more  heart-rending  than  the  sacrifices  it  has  exacted  of 
youthful  life  and  the  gaps  which  it  has  made  in  the  family 
circle.  True,  that  holy  bond  around  the  hearth  must, 
under  any  circumstances,  gradually  be  dissolved.  It  is 
the  most  sacred  and  beautiful  of  earthly  ties,  but  it  may 
be  transfigured  to  a  sublimer  relationship  in  heaven. 

Fair  faces  beaming  round  the  household  hearth, 

Young  joyous  tones  in  melody  of  mirth, 

The  sire  doubly  living  in  his  boy, 

And  she,  the  crown  of  all  that  wealth  of  joy; 

These  make  the  home  like  some  sweet  lyre,  given 

To  sound  on  earth  the  harmonies  of  heaven. 

A  sudden  discord  breaks  the  swelling  strain, 

One  chord  has  snapped  :  the  harmony  again 

Subdued  and  slower  moves,  but  never  more 

Can  pour  the  same  glad  music  as  of  yore: 

Less  and  less  full  the  strains  successive  wake, 

Chord  after  chord  must  break — and  break — and  break  : 

Until  on  earth  the  lyre  dumb  and  riven 

Finds  all  its  chords  restrung  to  loftier  notes  in  heaven. 

To  that  supreme  Source  of  consolation,  and  strength, 
and  wisdom  would  I  finally  point  you,  and  may  He  so 
guide  your  course  in  life  that  you  may  prove  an  honor 
to  the  institution  which  is  about  to  send  you  forth,  a  con- 
solation and  pride  to  your  friends,  worthy  servants  of  your 
country,  and  may  be  welcomed  at  the  last  with  the  approv- 
ing "well  done"  of  your  God. 


! 


